Warm Greetings after a long break!
There has been a lot of action in the past few months.
Sec. 498 A was incorporated under the IPC after a sustained and long struggle by women’s organisations and others. However, dowry related torture and domestic violence has continued to escalate even after Sec.498A and Sec. 304 (B) (dowry death) were incorporated in the law. Currently, according to official NCRB statistics, about 70,000 cases of torture under Sec. 498 A are filed every year all over the country. However, very few complaints result in convictions. This is mainly because of the poor implementation of the law by the police and other authorities as well as certain loopholes in the Dowry Act. The government is attempting to dilute section 498 A by making it compoundable/ bailable and is trying to include it in the list of issues to be taken up by the tanta-mukta gram samiti. Any dilution of Sec. 498A will further weaken the efficacy of the law to deal with the issue.
MASUM under the banner of Stree Mukti Andolan Samparka Samiti is supporting the protest against making 498 A compoundable.
The Asia-Pacific Region and the Indian National Consultations on Violence against Indigenous Women with the United Nations Special Rapporteurs concluded successfully.
A Jan Sunwai was organized on 21stOctober 2008 for Pune district under the NRHM community monitoring initiative. VHSC members, 3 NGOs (Dr. Abhaya Shukla, Dr. Hemlata pisal, Ms. Nandita Kapadia Kundu) and government officials (DHO, block surgeon of rural hospital, medical officers of the 3 blocks etc.) were among the 200 people who attended the event.Cases of denial of health care were presented before the panel. Nine PHCs were selected for community monitoring. Five villages in each PHC were chosen for implementing the community monitoring initiative . The VHSC members were given 2 day training. A workshop with local journalists was also conducted. Each NGO named the village meeting between VHSC members, PHC staff and NGO staff differently. The meetings were called “Jahir Sabha”, “Jan Samvaad” and “Arogya Sabha”. These meetings enabled the establishment of dialogue about PHC services and peoples needs.
Archana visited Prakriti organisation in Nagpur on 22 and 23rd October as resource person on Linkages between health and violence for an internal training of Presidents and leaders of Micro-credit groups of Bhandara and Nagpur districts.
The final examination for the students of the computer education class from Naigaon and Mavdi was held in October. New batches were started in November in Tekavdi and Mavdi.
The second training in a series of trainings on Chakrabhed (breaking the spiral of violence against women) was conducted for Saathis (para-legal workers) in the Hadapsar office on the 4th and 5th of November.
A meeting was organised by NAWO in Mumbai on 8th November to build pressure for implementation of 33% reservation for women in panchayats. The meeting was attended by Ravi and Jaya.
Vacha Trust organised a National Symposium on Girls and Girlhoods - At Threshold of Youth and Gender, in coordination with the post graduate departments of the SNDT Women’s University, Mumbai. The symposium was held from 6-8 November at the SNDT University, Mumbai. The symposium was attended by two health workers along with 5 adolescent girls (from Waghapr, malshiras and Pimpri) who presented a case study of how adolescent girls and MASUM's activists addressed the issue of sexual harassment by a school teacher.
A-bhaya Abhiyaan, a campaign towards fear free learning was launched two years ago and aims to stop physically and mentally humiliating punishments in schools in Pune. The campaign will work towards having self discipline policy and practice in schools.
Childhood is about innocence and playfulness. It is about joy and freedom. Celebrating Children's Day is about giving children the right to enjoy and grow into healthy and educated citizens of the country. On the occasion of children's day, A-bhaya Abhiyaan organised a program on 13th Nov 2008 at Sambhaji, Pune where Street Play was performed by children on Corporal Punishment and a Poster Exhibition was Inaugurated by Child Artist Saksham Kulkarni. The program ended with a pledge by all participants to stop Corporal Punishment.
Abhaya Abhyan now has its community on orkut as well.
Rujuta Phadke, a student from Symbiosis Institute of Media and Communication joined MASUM on the 17 of November for a 6 week internship on Social communication.
Malavika attended the 12th Asian Training and Study Session for Human Rights Defenders (ATSS) organised by The Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (FORUM-ASIA) held in Bangkok, Thailand from 17 November to 1 December 2008. FORUM-ASIA has been organising the ATSS on an annual basis since 1997as part of its efforts to empower human rights defenders (HRDs) to meet challenges, strengthen the human rights movement and promote solidarity and cooperation among the human rights organisations in the Asian region.
Violence Against Women fortnight is an event that is celebrated the world over commencing in the last week of November. The event is being celebrated in Pune aswell for the past few years be several organisations. This year the theme of the fortnight was Engaging men in the implementation of Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act.
Some collective acitivities planned for the fortnight are as follows -
1) One day regional consultation on DV Act on 26 Nov. at ILS Law college.
2) Jansunwai on DV Act - 5 or 8 Dec. 08
3) Rally on Human Rights day - 10 Dec.08
4) Press conference on 24th Nov.
The day long regional consultation on the Implementation of the PWDVA Act held at ILS Law College, Pune on Wednesday,26th November 2008 was attended by Archana and Anupama. The consultation was organised by Centre for Social Research, Delhi in collaboration with Asmita Manch.
2 survivors from MASUM's feild area presented their cases at the public hearing on PWDV Act. The hearing was organised by CFAR and Asmita Manch.
The fortnight was also celebrated in 19 villages where MASUM is working. Awareness generation programmes where organised on protection of women's rights through PWDVA and main provisions of the same.
A group of about 40 students from Savitri Bai Phule Women's Study Centre, University of Pune visited MASUM (Malshiras and Hadapsar) for an exposure visit on 14th November.
Deepgruha Society, Pune is being restructured. 9 people including some program heads visited MASUM on 19th Nov to understand MASUM's structure and strategies as part of the preparations.
Preparatory meetings are being held for the Democracy festival 2009. Milind is actively involved in giving shape to the plans.
The training camp for Pre-school teachers was held from 17 to 20th November in the Hadapsar office.
A group of 7 grassroots activists from MASUM visited Sanchar in Kolkata for a training and exposure visit on Management of Disability
